This anthology not only explores a subject as vast as this century, but brings together a profound chorus of contemporary American voices. The editors deliberately straddled the customary fault lines in American poetry, approaching poets from all walks of verse. Writers both new and established are represented here, including Paul Auster, Charles Bukowski, Robert Creeley, Allen Ginsberg, Maxine Kumin, Carolyn Kizer, Charles Simic, David Trinidad, and Anne Waldman.

 

AMLIT: Literatur aus den USA
Edited by Gerhard Falkner (Germany)

Autoren: Kathy Acker, Barbara Barg, Paul Beatty, Michael Brodsky, William S. Burroughs, Raymond Carver, Susan Cataldo, Jerome Charyn, Dennis Cooper, Lydia Davis, Robert Dean, Leslie Dick, Rita Dove, Raymond Federman, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Robert Fitterman, Amy Gerstler, Robert Glück, Brad Gooch, Richard Hell, Amy Hempel, Amy Herrick, Eric Holswade, Terrence E. Holt, Sandy Huss, Gary Indiana, Harold Jaffe, Marael Johnson, La Loca, Vampyre Mike Kassel, Steve Katz, Alan Kaufman, Mary Kelly, August Kleinzahler, Chris Kraus, Michael Krekorian, Salvatore La Puma, Sylvère Lotringer, Judy Lopatin, Deran Ludd, Thomas Lux, J.S. Marcus, Patrick McGrath, Harry Mathews, Larry Mitchell, Jess Mowry, Cookie Müller, Eileen Myles, Alice Notley, Michael Palmer, Robert Peters, James Pollack, Nancy Reilly, Ann Rower, Roy Schneider, Sarah Schulman, David Shapiro, Barry Silesky, Lynne Tillman, Susan Timmons, Paul Trachtenberg, Julia Vinograd, Bill Vollman, Danielle Willis, David Wojnarowicz, Peter Wortsman

 

The L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Book
Edited by Bruce Andrews and Charles Bernstein. What's it all about?

" L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E P=O=E=T=R=Y also recognized that language is political. In the same way that American farmers hid behind tree trunks and took pop shots at British soldiers who stood in formation in open fields during the revolutionary war, L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E P=O=E=T=S fractured the language in an attempt to wage their own rebellious assault against the social and political structure inherent in the Imperial force of the English language. In doing this, the entire reading process was overhauled, with the reader of this type of poetry forever changed in the way that he or she encounters text of any type." Well it did forever change the way we encounter text of any type. But it didn't leave us with anywhere to go. Like opening a door only to crash into a brick wall. It was a necessary moment in time, but it's so 20th Century.

Out of This World
Edited by Anne Waldman, Foreward by Allen Ginsberg

The Poetry Project at St. Mark's has been the de facto headquarters of the East Coast avant-garde for 25 years. Largely composed of work from the project's magazine The World , this anthology "celebrates the 'outrider' tradition," including selections from progenitors like Creeley, Corso, and Guest through unclassifiables such as Alice Notley and John Yau, to today's best-known language poets. Helen Adam's strict ballads are within page-flipping distance of Quincy Troupe's verbal jazz riffs and John Giorno's echoic litanies. What's Donald Hall doing here? Perhaps he was invited by Lou Reed. This book is huge and acceptably weird proof that there's more going on in poetry than the academy tells us.

--Fred Muratori, Cornell Univ. Lib., Ithaca, N.Y.